10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

An unmanned Delta 4 Heavy rocket, the largest booster in in the U.S. fleet, lifts off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to put a classified satellite into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office August 28, 2013

Good morning! Here's what you need to know.

Markets in Asia were higher. Japan's Nikkei gained 0.91%. Korea's Kospi climbed 1.22%. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.10%. European markets were higher across the board led by London's FTSE at 0.46%. U.S. futures were pointing higher.

Q2 GDP was revised up to 2.5% from 1.7%; — analysts expected 2.2%.

Gold and oil futures were all down this morning as fears of an imminent Western strike in Syria were put on hold. December yellow metal contracts were off -0.61% and Brent futures for October declined -0.75%.

Italy's business confidence index recovered to a near-two-year high, with wholesale demand rising. The survey ticked 92.9 for August against 91.8 prior and 92.5 expected. It's the strongest print since November 2011. Consumer confidence was also higher. Meanwhile, Germany's latest unemployment reading stayed at 6.8%, and the rate of Spanish GDP contraction slowed slightly.

Bloomberg's Dawn Kopecki reports the Justice Department has joined the SEC in investigating whether JPMorgan illicitly hired candidates merely to gain business from their wealthy family members. She also lays out the broader predicament faced by the firm: "JPMorgan, led by Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, 57, is contending with criminal investigations of its energy-trading and mortgage-backed securities operations. The firm also faces U.S. probes of its anti-money-laundering safeguards, foreclosures, credit-card collections, and $6.2 billion in losses last year on botched derivatives bets by a U.K. trader known as the London Whale."